Delhi HC seeks Twitter's stand on plea against illegal suspension of account

The petition challenged the “out of the blue” illegal suspension of a user account for alleged violation of its rules.

The Delhi High Court on Monday sought the stand of microblogging platform Twitter on a petition challenging the “out of the blue” illegal suspension of a user account for alleged violation of its rules.

Justice V Kameswar Rao issued notice and also sought the central government's response on the petition by Dimple Kaul who claimed that her Twitter handle had more than 2,55,000 followers and was used for posting educational content related to history, literature, politics, archaeology, Indic culture, non-violence, equality and women's rights.

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The court also issued notice on another petition against suspension of the Twitter account of user Suyash Deep Rai.

Lawyer Raghav Awasthi, appearing for both the petitioners, contended that Twitter was “deleting profiles as per its own sweet will and they have no right to do so” in law and asserted that the accounts be restored during the pendency of the petitions.

Senior advocate Sajan Poovayya, representing the US-based social media platform, said that a writ petition was not maintainable against Twitter which is a private entity and sought time to file a response.

He said that granting any interim relief in the present cases would be as good as granting final relief.